


A Home of Sorts, or Something

by fits_in_frames



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7002346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fits_in_frames/pseuds/fits_in_frames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A relationship told in missing scenes, or 6 ways to say “I love you” without really trying. Also, a poorly-made bagel, non-corporeal eye-rolling, a crumpled pile of blankets, and the eyes and hands of mere mortals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Home of Sorts, or Something

**Author's Note:**

> oh marie, it was so easy to fall in love with you  
> it felt almost like a home of sorts or something  
> {josh ritter // the temptation of adam}  
>   
> Spoilers through Episode 32, Controlled Demolition.

**Day: 12 (1703 hours)**

"Officer Eiffel, are you sure you d-don't want my help?"

Doug glares up at the tiny lens above his comms panel, where he's been told the A.I. visual interface gets its input. He's not sure that's true, because the voice comes seemingly from nowhere, but he needs something to glare at and that lens seems appropriate. He's been trying to recalibrate the aft array for two hours and nothing is working. He wants very badly to ask Hera to do it for him, even if the whole idea of artificial intelligence still makes him a bit wary. But he has his orders so instead he says, "No, I'm fine. I've--almost--got it--just--" A loud, high-pitched beep cuts him off. "Dammit!" he yells, slamming his fist on the edge of the panel, which in turn causes him to dislodge from his seat.

"Offic-cer Eiffel--"

"I said I'm fine," he says again, this time through gritted teeth. He thought he was strapped in and now has the extra task of re-securing himself in his chair. He hates low-gravity, he hates this chair, and he hates this job.

"It's actually quite s-simple, I can fix the problem fairly quickly-y," Hera offers.

Doug grunts nebulously at her. ( _At “it”?_ , he thinks, and makes a mental note to ask later. For now, "her" will have to do.)

"With minimal ef-fort from you," she adds.

"No, Minkowski told me I had to do this by myself," he says, angrily hooking up his shoulder straps. "She said I should have all the--” here he makes air quotes “--‘necessary training’ and I couldn't always rely on--” air quotes “--‘some supercomputer’ to help me."

"' _Some_ comp-puter'?" Hera says, sounding offended. He didn't know A.I.s could get offended.

"I mean--that's not what I meant." He waits a moment and when he doesn't get an answer he tries again. "That's just what the Commander said."

"Oh, so C-Commander Minkow-wski think-ks I'm just ' _some comp-puter_ '???" He swears he can actually hear three question marks at the end of that sentence. _Modern technology_ , he thinks, _amazing_.

“To be fair, she did say _super_ computer.” No response. He readjusts his suit so it's not cutting off blood flow to his right arm, and sighs. "You'll have to take that up with the Commander." Still nothing. "Hera?"

"What." Definitely a period at the end of that one.

"Sorry. I just gotta do this on my own."

"F-Fine."

It's another 20 minutes and three unsuccessful attempts before he speaks again. "Heeeera?" he says, tentatively.

"Yes, Officer Eiffel?" Hera doesn't sound mad anymore. He doesn't know why he thought that she would be, but he's relieved just the same.

"Could you at least give me a hint?"

There's a pause. He can almost feel her rolling her non-corporeal eyes.

"You have to turn the array off first."

"Ah-haha," Doug sputters, feeling his ears go hot and flipping a switch on his panel to OFF. "I--I knew that."

"Of cours-se you did," she says, with barely contained sarcasm, which somehow doesn’t surprise him at all.

He re-enters his sequence of buttons and keys and when there's no awful screeching sound, he flips the switch back to ON. The console whirrs for a moment, bleeps a few times, and then his indicator light turns from red to green.

"Oh yeah!" he exclaims. And then, not even thinking about what he's saying: "Hera, I could just kiss you right now!" He starts punching the air above him while humming the Rocky theme.

"Officer Eiffel?" she says, loud enough that he can hear it over his humming.

He freezes, one fist above his head. "Yeah?"

"You're welcome."

He grins, blows a kiss at the visual interface (which seems to flash briefly--did she just _wink_ at him?), and unhooks his straps so he can have a proper low-gravity celebration.

  


**Day: 365 (1137 hours)**

“A whole year,” Minkowski says as she comes into the break room, “can you believe it?”

“Yes,” Eiffel and Hilbert say in unison, slightly exasperated. They’ve been sitting here for nearly 40 minutes, waiting for the Commander to get there so the quote-unquote “celebration” could begin.

“Yes,” Hera says, “I am equipped with a time det-tection system, you know.”

“That’s not what I meant, I meant--we’ve been here a whole year! That’s amazing!” She seems genuinely excited, and Doug is doing all he can to not roll his eyes.

“Amazing is not exactly the word I would use,” Hilbert growls. He looks like he desperately wants to be anywhere else.

Looking down at her crew, Minkowski sighs. “Oh fine, I’ll just bring out the good stuff.” She rummages through a cabinet and pulls out a small, round container with a lid. She opens it to reveal what looks like a giant, squished doughnut. She’s waiting for the men to react. They don’t. “Guys, do you know what this is?”

“A bundt cake?” Hilbert offers unhelpfully.

“A poorly-made bagel?” Eiffel says, slightly nervous at how excited the Commander seems.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s a babka!” Still nothing from either of them. “You know, an Easter cake? You make it over a couple of days? Guys, I worked really hard on this!”

She sets it down, and Eiffel pokes at it. She lightly slaps his hand. “It doesn’t feel like a cake,” he says.

Minkowski starts rambling while she takes out plates and forks and a large knife, hopefully for cake-cutting. “It’s just something my mom used to make when I was a kid. It’s not quite her recipe, I had to fudge some of the ingredients based on what we had in storage--I mean, actual yeast would have been helpful--but overall I think I got it pretty close.” She starts cutting thick slices and laying them gently on the plates. “It’s usually made for Easter and that was a while ago but, you know, I figured I’d save it for today.”

Hilbert and Eiffel just stare at her as she hands them each a tough, yellow slice of dense cake.

“Hilbert, I can’t believe you’ve never had this! It’s a Russian thing, too, right?”

“My family never really did...Easter,” Hilbert says, eyeing his plate suspiciously.

“Well, anyway, happy anniversary, boys!” Minkowski exclaims, and digs into her own slice. “Not bad, Minkowski,” she says to herself, “not bad at all.”

Eiffel sniffs his slice. Pokes it, this time with his fork. Licks it. It doesn’t taste awful, and Hilbert doesn’t seem to hate his, so he takes a bite. It’s actually pretty good. Another bite. Actually, really good.

“I don’t know if it’s just the carb deprivation talking but this is great, Commander!” Minkowski beams at him. “Oh man, Hera, I wish you had a mouth so you could taste this right now. Oh man,” he says through a mouthful of cake.

“I don’t have a mouth, Officer Eiffel. It would be very imp-practical as I don’t have a body, either.”

“I wish you had a body, too, sweetheart. Oh man.”

Hilbert and Minkowski share a glance that they clearly don’t intend for Eiffel to see. But he does anyway.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Hilbert says, and takes another bite of cake. Minkowski clears her throat in a thinly-veiled attempt not to laugh.

“Don’t we all wish she had a body? Come on!” Eiffel says, but neither of them will look him in the eye. “Fine, I’m alone in my _Weird Science_ fantasy and I like it that way!” He gets up to leave.

“Uh-uh,” Minkowski says, pointing at the plate in his hands. “No way you’re taking that with you.”

“But Mo-om,” he whines, only half-joking.

“Crumbs,” she says, and holds out her hand.

“Fine,” he says, handing over the plate. “Come on, Hera, let’s get some work done.”

“O..kayyyy,” Hera says, “but I’m not entirely sure what just h-happened.”

“I’ll explain it to you later,” Eiffel says, leaving the room. He can hear the other two snickering as soon as he’s out of sight.

  


**Day: 488 (0804 hours)**

It takes him a full 24 hours to feel like a person again (rather than just a bundle of overloaded nerve endings) after The Space Suit Incident. He crawls back into his comms room the next morning, sets down his not-coffee and plans out which knobs and buttons he’s going to assault today. After a few minutes, he remembers he hasn’t said hi to Hera yet.

“Hera, you there?”

“Good morning, Officer Eiffel. What can I do for you?” She sounds just a chipper as ever, which should be supremely annoying. Instead, he finds it very comforting.

“You know how I’ve said I wish you had a body?”

“Ummm, y-yes?” she replies, slightly confused.

He rubs his temples. “I take it back. Having a body is the worst.”

“Noted.” She pauses. “I’m really glad-d you’re okay.”

He sighs. “Me too, Hera. Me too. Now let’s open up the phone lines and see what the callers have to say today.”

  


**Day: 598 (0715 hours)**

“Good morning, Officer Eiffel.”

Never in his life did he think he’d be so happy to hear his alarm clock go off. With that voice, really, who could complain? “Good morning, Hera.”

“Did you s-sleep well?” Chipper as ever.

“Best damn sleep of my life.” He sits up and stretches his arms above his head. “Anything happen while I was passed out?”

“Oh nothing much, just-t continually saving everyone from dy-ying a fiery, star-caused death.”

“Thanks for that,” he says, smirking. He looks over at the monitor on the interface panel next to his bed. “Hey, Hera?”

“Yes, Eiffel?”

“I don’t have to be back in the comms room until 0800...do you think we could just...hang out for a little while?” He feels kind of stupid saying it but he genuinely just wants to spend time with her when they’re not working or saving their own lives. Even if it’s only a few minutes.

“Oh. Yeah, sure, okay,” she says. “Let me just d-do a quick course adjust-tment first.”

Now he feels _really_ stupid. “I mean, if you’re too busy saving our butts from the death star--”

“It’s fine,” she says, sounding busy already. “Just g-give me a moment.”

He yawns and rubs his eyes, almost comically.

“All right, cours-se corrected. What do you want to talk about?”

He smiles sleepily at the interface. “You.”

“Me?” she says in her best _oh mister darcy_ voice. He’s not even sure she knows she has that capability, but it makes him happy that she does.

“Well, specifically how much I missed you.” He closes his eyes, leans his head back against the wall. “God, I missed you so much.”

She pauses, he thinks because she’s unsure of how to respond. “If I was online, I’m sure I would’ve missed-d you too.”

“Thanks babe, but what I mean is--I mean, we’re really freaking useless without you. We’re not Energizer bunnies, and we have the eyes and hands of mere mortals. So I missed you running the station, but also I just...I missed _you_. I missed your voice. I mean, it was your voice but it wasn’t _your voice_ , you know? It was like that one episode of Star Trek where they took out Spock’s brain. It was him but it wasn’t _him_.” He hopes that made sense.

“I don’t r-really know what you mean, but I can-n imagine.” It didn’t. Damn.

He tries again: “What I’m saying is, it was terrible. I never wanna do that again.”

“You and me b-both.”

A minute or so of silence. He’s not really sure he wants to go in this direction, but his brain decides for him.

“I almost gave up, you know.”

“You did?” she sounds genuinely puzzled. It’s a bit comforting that she has more faith in him than he does.

“Yeah,” he says, a little softer than before. “There was a moment when I almost said _screw it_ and locked myself in the comms room. I almost let me and Minkowski die. I almost thought...I thought it’d be worth it if we could take Hilbert with us. It was very tempting. I was hungry and stressed out and exhausted and everything hurt. I almost just laid down and died.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Nope. And you know why?”

“Umm-m...”

He speaks before she has a chance to respond. “I held on for you, sweetheart.”

“Oh,” she says, then, confused, “What?”

“I knew if we could figure out how to get you back online, I knew I would hear that voice again. And if I could hear that voice again, I knew we’d be okay. And I was right, baby.” He presses a hand up against the monitor. “We had to do some awful things, but I was right.”

“Well I can’t-t say I’m happy you let Hilb-bert touch me ag-gain,” she says, slightly angry. Then, more calmly, “But I am happy to be-e back.”

He leans his forehead on the monitor. “If you had a body this wouldn’t be so weird,” he says out loud without realizing it.

“W-what wouldn’t be so weird?”

“Oh, uh. I’m trying to, uh,” he stammers, “oh god this sounds so stupid--I’m trying to...cuddle you.” He pauses, and when she doesn’t laugh at him, he says, “It’s not working very well.”

“Hang on,” she says, not even a little weirded out, “let me t-try something.” The lights dim a little. A puff of warm air comes out of the ventilation system. The monitor glows with a faint pink tinge, pulsing slightly. “How’s that?”

He scoots over so he can lean his back almost entirely against the monitor. “That’s just fine, darlin’. That’s just fine.”

“Good. And Eiffel?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s good to hear your v-voice too.”

He chuckles softly and leans his head back. “I knew you missed me,” he whispers, and he could swear that the monitor glows a bit redder than before.

  


**Day: 901 (0047 hours)**

Renée is almost literally up to her eyeballs in star charts when someone taps on the door frame. It’s probably Kepler so she calls out over the stacks, “Still alive!”

She starts a bit when she hears Lovelace’s voice say, “Commander?”

They’re both on night rotation this week but Kepler has...not so much ordered as _very heavily implied_ that they should avoid contact if at all possible. She looks up. Isabel looks concerned. Not we’re-all-going-to-die concerned, but definitely something-is-wrong concerned. “Yes, Lovelace?”

“There’s a--a situation.” She pauses, seemingly unsure if she should continue. She does. “With Eiffel.”

Renée puts her current chart aside. Now she’s concerned, too. “Situation?” she says through closed teeth.

Lovelace continues, “I’m supposed to check in on him once an hour and I just went to his quarters and he wasn’t there. I asked--”

“Hera,” Renée says quickly. “Can you locate Officer Eiffel?” Lovelace looks annoyed but says nothing.

“Sorry Commander,” Hera says. “I alread-dy tried but he seems to be in a b-blind spot.”

“Blind spot?” Renée says, fully annoyed now.

“Yes, while Dr. Maxwell upgrades my s-systems, there’s a few plac-ces on the station I can’t seem to scan. But Captain Lovel-lace--”

“Thanks, Hera,” Lovelace cuts in, glancing at the ceiling. Hera doesn't respond. “I’ll take it from here.” She looks back at Renée. “I found him.”

Renée’s shoulders relax. She didn’t even know she was holding them up. “Oh, thank god.”

Lovelace doesn’t look so relieved. “I found him outside Hera’s secondary mainframe. Asleep.”

Renée raises an eyebrow. “Really.”

Lovelace nods. “He’s alive, you know, and I tried waking him up but he didn’t really respond. I figured you know him better than anyone on this station so--”

“Can you cover for me?” She’s zipping up her jumpsuit while she speaks.

“Of course. But get back soon, I’m not sure how long Kepler will buy the bathroom break excuse.” Lovelace smirks.

“Noted. See you soon.” She turns down the hallway, then turns back. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Lovelace replies. “Now, hurry.”

She makes it to the mainframe in just a few minutes. The opportunity to stretch her legs and arms is lovely, but immediately becomes irrelevant when she sees Eiffel, crumpled in a pile of blankets outside the door. “Officer Eiffel?” she calls. No response. She approaches him. “Eiffel?” Nothing. She places a hand on his back and whispers, “Doug?”

He takes a sharp breath, turns his head a little, blinks sleepily. “Hey, Commander,” he croaks.

“Eiffel,” she whispers angrily, “what the hell are you doing?”

“Well, I was sleeping until a second ago,” he says, eyes not fully open yet.

“No, Eiffel, what are you doing _here_?”

“Oh, I, uh--” He’s half-awake, but that’s only part of his hesitation. “Just wanted to be close to her, y’know?”

“Close to--? Oh.” Renée finishes her own thought. Of course he’s here. He hasn’t even been back two weeks, he’s still a mess physically and emotionally, and today Maxwell turned off access to Hera in the crew quarters (it’s temporary, she says, but Renée’s not so sure). He can’t get to the bridge where her personality matrix is, so he’s sleeping next to her backup circuit boards. Renée’s not even sure he knows about the blind spot. He just wants to be nearby, even if he can’t talk to her. Of course. “All right, well. Let’s get you back to bed.” When she moves to get him up, she realizes she hasn’t taken her hand off of his back. 

He rolls onto his side, wincing a little. “Can’t I just--stay here? Just for a little while?” he mumbles.

She looks around. The door is locked. The hallway is empty. It’s unlikely anyone but Maxwell will come down here in the next few days, and Maxwell is off-shift right now. Probably sleeping herself.

“Sure,” she says. “For a little while.”

“Just don’t tell Sergeant Hartman, okay?” He smiles contentedly, readjusts his body to a less painful position (one fragile-looking hand gently butted up against the door itself), and dozes off before she can answer him. She shakes her head, slightly amused, as she turns back the way she came. She’s happy he remembers his pop culture, at least.

When she returns to the observation deck, Lovelace is anxiously glancing up and down the hall. “So,” she says, “what the hell was he doing there?”

Renée unzips the top of her suit to prepare for another few hours of chart shuffling. “Just spending some time with his girl.”

“His--? Oh.” Lovelace sounds just as surprised and certain as Renée is sure she did herself a few minutes ago. “All right, then.”

“Just let him stay there until 0300. Then drag his ass back to his room before Kepler finds out.” She settles back into her nest amongst the star charts.

“You got it, Minkowski. Good night.”

“Good night, Lovelace.”

When she’s gone, Renée smiles, just a little, just to herself.

  


**Day: 945 (2013 hours)**

She knows it’s his first official day back in the comms room. She knows he’s working night shift because between space and time and cryofreezing, he can’t really tell day from night anymore. She knows he must feel strong enough to sit up for long periods of time. She doesn’t know if he’s ready for the conversation they need to have. But she knows _she_ is strong enough, despite the constant, residual background noise in her pathways, so she decides to try anyway.

“Officer Eiffel?” she says into his loudspeaker. It feels really good to use that branch of the system again.

“Hey, Hera.” He sounds exhausted, but pleased to hear her voice.

She pauses, partly because she’s unsure how to proceed, and partly because Jacobi may or may not have started a small fire in the break room. “How are you feeling?”

He chuckles a little. “You tell me, baby. How are my vitals lookin’?”

She scans his body, looking him up and down and crossways. Everything is at the low end of normal: respiration rate at 15 breaths per minute, heart rate at 48 beats per minute, core body temperature at 34.9ºC. She could tell him all this, but instead she says, “Decent.” Then, knowing that’s not really what he wants to hear, she adds, “Better.”

“Thanks doc,” he says, sounding a little less worn down. “Good to know you’re looking out for me.”

She’s stalling, but she’s going to go ahead as planned. _Now or never_ , she thinks. (Meanwhile, Jacobi and Dr. Maxwell tell her they have the fire situation under control.) “Officer Eiffel, can I ask-k you something?”

“Sure, darlin’. Go ahead.”

“Are you mad at me?”

He sighs. It’s the sigh he sighs when he’s about to lie to her. “No, Hera, I’m just tired. I’m exhausted.” 

“I know, I mean. Of course, of cour-s-s-se you’re tired. You just used to talk to me m-more, that’s all.” She’s glitching again, and that means she’s starting to get upset. She never used to get this upset, but ever since Dr. Hilbert--even with the repairs that Dr. Maxwell did-- No, she’s not going to think about it right now. It’s too much.

Another sigh. “Things are different, I guess.”

She waits, and when he doesn’t continue, she goes on. “Are you mad bec-cause I didn’t tell you about the pain?”

“I mean, I guess.” Then, more emphatically: “I didn’t even know you could feel pain. I didn’t even know that was a thing that someone like you could feel!”

She appreciates very much that he didn’t call her a robot. It takes a lot of re-routing to stop herself from telling him that out loud.

“Hera, you there?” he says, and she realizes it’s been several seconds since she responded.

“I’m here, sorry,” she says (a little distracted by the mess Jacobi and Dr. Maxwell are making, trying to put the fire out). “I just...didn’t want you to worry, I guess.”

He glares up at her visual interface, face gaunt but angry. “But that’s my job!” he almost-yells. “I’m your--” he stops himself “--I’m the Samwise to your Frodo! The Kirk to your Spock! The Ron to your Hermione! It’s my _job_ to worry!” She doesn’t exactly understand all of the references he made, but she knows what he means. She can tell he wants to say more but he’s stopped to catch his breath. (Respiration 22 and slightly labored. Heart rate 85 and rising. Body temperature 35.2 and fluctuating.) He continues, less animated. “At least I could’ve, I don’t know, distracted you or something.” He pauses, thinks. “Can A.I.s get even distracted?”

“Not really.” She knows now that he’s just as upset as she is, and she wants to fix it. Words start tumbling out of her speakers almost as fast as she can process them. “But I couldn’t explain it, Doug. There’s no w-way I could have describ-bed it to you. I didn’t have the words. Dr. Maxwell gave me the words. And now that--”

“Now that I get it?” he mutters, without a hint of sarcasm, idly rubbing his fingers together.

“No, Eiffel, now that I _have the words_ , I’m t-telling you. I’m telling you _now_.”

He slumps in his chair a little and says, quietly, “I’m sorry he did that to you, baby. I’m sorry you were hurting. I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”

“And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” (She has finally put out the break room fire and directed Dr. Maxwell to take over clean up, since Jacobi is covered in debris and more or less useless at this point.)

“It’s okay,” he says, affectionately. Then, after a beat, “Did you call me Doug?”

She did, but she’s going to string him along a little. Using her best offended voice, she says, “Officer Eiffel, I would n-never! How unprofessional!”

“Yeahhhh, I’m pretty sure you called me Doug. I won’t tell if you won’t. Deal?”

“Deal. Let’s find some crazy s-space sounds.”

He looks up at her interface (respiration 18, calm; pulse 59, steady; body temperature 35.4, holding), smiles for what might be the first time in months, and blows her a kiss. And, for a nanosecond, however improbable it seems to her, she completely forgets about the dull, lingering ache in her circuits.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published fic in a really long time. Also my first Wolf 359 fic. It just kind of poured out of me. Please let me know what you think :)
> 
> Also: big shoutout to the W359 wiki and [this post](http://psyphers.tumblr.com/post/135050614173) for help with the timeline. I approximated the season 3 dates since the scripts aren't out yet, so I may change those dates (and only the dates) if/when we get new info.


End file.
